Homecoming Prequel: Buttercup
by kangeiko
Summary: Liz goes to Basingstoke to visit an 'old friend', and makes a discovery that doesn't bode well for future events. Set five months before the events of "Homecoming", during the season 3 and 4 hiatus.


BUTTERCUP

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Buffy universe, Basingstoke or Spike. Two of those belong to Joss, FOX and Warner Bros., and one belongs to, er, Great Britain. I think you can figure out which is which. I do, however, own Liz. She mine, all mine, bwahahahahahahaha!

SUMMARY: Liz goes to Basingstoke to visit an 'old friend', and makes a discovery that doesn't bode well for future events.

SERIES: This is set August 29th, 1999, which put it, um. . . . . about five months before the events of "Homecoming". It's set in that universe.

SPOILER: Eh. This is set after "Lover's Walk", but before "In the Harsh Light of Day", or however that episode was entitled. Not much of a spoiler - more for "In the Dark", if anything.

RATING/WARNINGS: Possible heretical references in here. Not much of a rating - PG-13, if I have to push it, for naughty language.

ARCHIVING: Those that have permission for my "Homecoming" story/series, go ahead if you want it. Everyone else, please ask.

FEEDBACK: Honest feedback welcomed. Constructive criticism welcomed. Flames will be fed to my feng shui candles.

In the beginning, there was darkness.

And so it would be in the end - when Armageddon arrived, darkness would consume the land once again, and the Plague of Man would be removed from the face of the earth.

Liz, of course, had not been around for the beginning, nor did she plan on being around for the end. There was something intrinsically creepy about 'the end of the world as we know it'. What would be on TV for starters? No, she liked her world intact, thank you very much. Fat lot of good it does me, she thought, fiddling with the clasp on her bag. Might as well stake meself now; it ain't gonna get much better than this.

That was a truly depressing thought.

She was sitting on a train supposedly bound for Basingstoke - in reality still delayed at Waterloo station - and was reading a week-old copy of "Woman's Own". She'd already managed to get chewing gum on her coat, and had had to spend twelve precious minutes picking it off. To top it all off, her train -- headed for a place she'd sworn she'd never return to, a place that had such a strong draw it regularly made her break that promise -- was delayed because there was a leaf on the track. Not 'leaves'. But a leaf.

This was the blissful eternity offered to her by her sire?! If the bugger wasn't already twice dead, she'd have hunted him down and made him eat his balls. Oh, yeah. Unlife is flippin' sweet. Just how long does it take to clear away one fuckin' leaf, anyway? She glared out through the window as a family with too-chirpy young children piled in and decided to sit all around her. Ya couldn't 'ave chosen a different set of flippin' seats, could ya, ducks? God, but she was hungry. She'd had a snack just before leaving, but the bloke must have been on something the weekend previously, because he'd tasted distinctly odd. Spoilt her appetite something rotten --

And, now, it was back with a vengeance. Get them blimmin' kids away from me afore I lunch on 'em!

"Phew. I thought we weren't going to make it!" Their mother had decided to put herself in for the role of appetizer, it seemed. She grinned far too cheerily at Liz and dumped a baby bag underneath the table, shoving it halfway under Liz's feet.

The vampiress glared at the offender with unrestrained venom in her eyes, letting her human mask slip deliberately, ever so slightly. Run little girl, run...

Three seconds later, the family had relocated to another group of seats, trailing apologies and observations about a wider table in their wake.

God. Can we get a flippin' move on, already? She didn't exactly have all night... in fact, it was damned lucky she even had a bit of the night. The first train after sundown, and it had to get delayed. It was the equivalent of getting stuck in rush hour first thing in the morning when you wanted to get somewhere really quickly. I knew I should have drove! Too late to do anything about it now, though.

Besides... not like it's the best place to return to.

With an exasperated grunt, she shoved the lever by her right armrest down, reclining in her seat and closing her eyes. Not much chance of vampire hunters on the 8:32pm to Basingstoke... correction, now the 8:47pm to Basingstoke. Liz wondered if at this rate they'd get there by 10pm.

"Basingstoke, this is Basingstoke. We apologise for the late arrival of the 20:32 service from London Waterloo to Exeter St Davids. The train now standing on platform 2 is the 20:32 service to Exeter St Davids. Calling at Andover, Salisbury, Tisbury..." The voice-over droned on, out-shouting every other person on the concourse. Everyone was on the run, trying to catch their connecting train before they were left stranded at what was spiritually and physically a cross-roads. 10pm, and rush hour at Basingstoke. Can this day get any better?

As if on cue, the heavens opened up over Liz's umbrella-less form and managed to pour quite a few gallons of rainwater over her head before she ducked back under the station canopy. You just had ta think that, didn't ya, Liz? Ya couldn't think 'o somethin' decent... There was no helping it, she'd have to walk – the rain could continue for hours, and she wanted to get away from this place as soon as possible. She pulled the hood of her coat up and clutched her bag firmly under one arm, making sure that it was securely closed. Why the fuck did I forget my umbrella?!

She ran.

Past the people milling outside, waiting for a taxi, and down into the subway, she ran up and out back into the rain, snarling as she was pelted by the increasingly vicious downpour. On her right, the patrons of the "Great Western Hotel" – in reality a recently restored Georgian-looking pub – were hurriedly grabbing their pints and rubbing back inside. Amazing how quickly a street could empty out, but there it was.

Busy staring at the tasty little morsels her stomach insisted it still had room for, Liz managed to trip and almost land on her face. "Oh – goddamn it! What a bloody stupid place to put a pavement!" The Basingstoke 'saint' – a small stick man with a halo – grinned back up at her, as if amused by her clumsiness. "This never happens to other vampires..."

Cursing under her breath, she collected her sodden bag and her equally sodden mobile phone, which now had an interesting scrape right along it, and headed across the road. Only the hill to go, and I'll be there. Now if only she could ignore the fact that she didn't want to be 'there' at all...

The climb was long, wet and muddy. Of course it would be. Heaven forbid it might actually be a nice warm evening in bloody August! Of course there wouldn't be. That would be too convenient.

So what if she ruined her shoes trying to navigate her way through the muddy stream that passed for a footpath. So what if she could hardly see where she was going because of the rain and sudden influx of cloud-type things on the horizon. Could be worse. Could be the sun deciding to come out and play... That was pretty much the only way she could envisage things become worse than they already were.

It only took her about five minutes to get up the hill and regard the ruin of Trinity Chapel that sat dark and silent on her far left. This was actually the far corner of the "Holy Ghost Graveyard", but it was easier to come up this way from the station. The other way required crossing about a dozen roads that had somehow neglected to acquire pavements for pedestrian safety. So, unless you flew, you stood a good chance of being run over. Which would just about make this my best evening ever!

The foundations of the back wall of the Chapel – the wall that should have faced her as she warily picked her way across the graveyard – had been bleached white by excess sun and rain, glowing hotly in the moonlight as if they were bone rather than forgotten rubble. There weren't even any gates around to section off the graveyard from the rest of the hill – the graves were slowly spilling down the hill, perhaps waiting until people weren't paying any attention so that they could end up in the heart of the town. But – no, the Chapel wouldn't allow that. It drew an invisible wall alongside the edge of the graveyard, keeping the spirits resting there contained. Wild flowers were its mortar and rain's dew it's bricks, and it kept the graveyard locked tighter than any wall could. There were three other walls there, and not one of them had this control over the graves – they'd migrated, shifted and moved until they'd eventually been bricked into the red walls. Bleached stone and rained-away names blended with the crumbling walls straining to keep them contained.

Liz shivered.

Always hated this place. It was Basingstoke personified. Nothing concrete keeping you in the city, but somehow you could never leave it. It's like a bloody Black Hole. Yes, that was it. It sucked everything into itself until not even the light could leave it. And people think London's creepy... London had nothing on this place.

The rain was easing off slightly, not that it did her drenched form any good. Just modelling the drowned rat look, me. She grimaced and threaded her way through the nearest small group of graves, wincing at the dilapidation that afflicted the oldest graves. Black and forest-green ivy curved menacingly around beatific stone angels, their hands help up in supplication, their robes entwined with years of weeds and wild flowers. People tended the recent graves, looking after their relatives' resting places, but hardly anyone came here to look at the old forgotten graves anymore. There wasn't anything interesting about it for the modern generation. You'd be lucky to get them to visit full stop, let alone get them to clean the place up. So they lay abandoned, graves overrun with vicious wild flowers and gravestones overturned by storms and floods and neglect, with no one venturing too far into this forgotten cemetery.

There was a child's toy propped up against the nearest stone - a small plane, propeller almost unseen under the thick growth of nettles that covered it. Doubtless that was why it had been abandoned. Or perhaps it was the cemetery itself that had frightened the toy's owner away, so that the small red plane had been left among the dead. In any case, it was there, cluttering up the place.

Thoughtfully, Liz stooped to pick up the small toy from its cradle of tall nettles, wincing slightly as they burned her skin. Not much of a reaction, but a reaction nonetheless. It made you feel alive in a way, despite the years' account of your death. Getting' sentimental in me old age. . . . .

Still, she tucked the muddy toy into her shoulder bag, wrapping it in the grey pashmina she'd forgotten to take out of her bag the night before. Doubtless the cashmere would be stained beyond belief, but. . . . . Sod it. I can always buy myself a new pashmina.

She walked on quickly, ignoring the broken glass that littered the footpath. Vandals and hooligans had visited here recently it seemed, leaving behind them a trail as out of place as breadcrumbs. Yeah. Hansel and Gretel turning up to visit the old witch's resting place. Why the fuck am I even here? Well now, there was a question she had no interest in answering. Best not think about it too much. Just move. Quickly.

Before her, the cemetery unfolded from its prison of neglect. Wrapped in weeds and abandonment like Sleeping Beauty's garden, the years shrank away under her feet, leaving her just a child again, looking around her surroundings in bewilderment. Beautiful, this. Beautiful the chipped fallen angels, their hands broken at the wrist, their wings brown with mud and dried streaks of rain. Wonderful that such beatific images of God in all His splendor would be so readily left to His mercy. Beautiful to see that he had no mercy, not even for those praising Him.

Strange that she felt sad, then. Strange that she didn't feel the need to add to this desecration of the dead. Maybe because you are dead, you stupid bitch. Get a fuckin' grip! Useless poetry, here in this forgotten place. Do what she had to do and then leave, as quickly as possible.

It would be a whole lot simpler if she knew exactly why she'd come here, though. Pointless, Liz, you take the whole night off to come here, and you don't know what the fuck for. Sor' it out, girl!

And just around the corner would be --

Would be. . .

Damnit, she couldn't even think it. Pathetic. Get a grip.

"Get. A. Grip."

Yeah, Liz, get a -- what?!

One thing Liz didn't do was talk out loud in a baritone. Which was strange, since someone in this cemetery was doing that. . . .

Never a fool, Liz immediately stilled herself, waiting. No sense in giving away her position if that 'someone' was an enemy -- and the chances were, he was. No human ever came here -- especially after dark.

The voice continued, sounding faint with distance and rain and regret. "You just turned up ta. . . . pay yer respects, is all. Nuthin' to it. Ya did the same fer, fer, fer the rest, didn't ya? Right then. So stop being a bloody nonce and get on with it."

Too much. Liz peered carefully around the dank foliage, thanking whoever had sent the rain for soaking up the dry twigs littered around. A male figure wrapped in a long leather coat paced in and out of Trinity Chapel, stopping occasionally to glare at the still-intact tower where broken gravestones had been thrown in and locked up. He almost hit his head several times as he paced under the small doorway, cursing colourfully and kicking at the bleached foundations and scowling at everything. Even without the bright light of the rising moon, Liz could see who it was.

William?!

Spike - formerly William - continued to scowl uselessly at the footpath leading out from the ruined Chapel, unaware of his audience. "Ain't no big deal," he muttered again, running a hand through his bleached hair carelessly, leaving streaks of mud through it. He looked thinner than Liz remembered, his gaze darker, angrier. She wondered irrationally if he'd run into Angelus recently... last she'd heard, they both been in the same area of California. Well, the Boca del Inferno drew vampires like honey drew flies. They lusted after the power of the Hellmouth -- little wonder that both sire and childe would find their way to it eventually. Strange that Spike would venture back here, though... after everything that had happened in London, strange that he'd come back.

"I'm not here," Spike informed the paved footpath, as if for Liz's benefit. "See? I'm in bloody Basingstoke, I ain't in London. Just comin' 'ere to pay my respects, is all." He chewed on his lower lip and fumbled with his lighter, trying to convince his cigarette to light up despite the fact that the rain had pretty much resulted in a tobacco soup. After a minute of ineffectual 'flicking', he gave up and tossed the cigarette on to the ground with a snarl.

Liz smiled at the gesture, so typically William in its frustration. Right. I got ya, childe. I got yer. Now, why I think that yer not convinced of that yerself? Almost unbidden, the second thought popped into her mind. And why would ya be payin' respects?

Spike continued to glare at the footpath as if it was somehow to blame for his temper. He gave up the pretence of dignity after another second and, obviously counting on the assumption that there was no one else around, dropped to his knees heavily, resting clenched fists on the damp stone in front of him. "Damnit... I just -- I -- please... help me," the whisper came, more child than killer. "Two years that bloody poof's been around, an' I can't take it anymore. Maybe that's a weakness, but I don't care. Not after Drusilla -- I..." He sighed. "Damnit, I don't know what to do anymore, you know? Everything I do over there goes to pot. And I maybe now he's gone it'll be different, but..." He shook his head. "Please. I need to kill him, and I can't like this..."

God! Damn Angelus that he should cause this! Damn him that his beautiful childe should be so broken, so abandoned, that he looked like he'd been born in this place! An image of a previous incarnation of a life – because wasn't each move, each choice and each abandonment a rebirth? – flitted through Liz's mind: William, angry and oh, so alive, despite having been dead for decades. He'd always been the best of them – the one you wanted to be like but knew in your heart you could never come close to equalling. And now...

Now there was something missing. And Liz knew who was to blame for tempering the honed blade that had been the angry, beautiful William. Damn Angelus! Damn him for what he'd done to his childe, with his soul and his curse and his Goddamned righteous indignation. Righteous indignation, hah. That's snobbishness with a halo. And you were always a snob, weren't you Angelus? Even when you were in the gutter, you thought you were special. . . . Always convinced that he'd been better than William, be it because of his social status or strength or moral superiority or whatever – Angelus had always had to be 'better' than everyone else.

Damn the sanctimonious bastard anyway.

What had he done to Spike? Obviously nothing recent, or the brat would have run to Liz straight off, wherever she was, even in London. Perhaps especially in London. It may have been the nightmare cradle, but it was a cradle nonetheless. If Spike had been in trouble, he would have run back home, whatever state 'home' had been in.

No -- something here had been building for a while now. Was this a pilgrimage for him? Liz moved forward imperceptibly. It certainly looked like it. To whom else -- and to what else -- would William kneel? He knew who had saved him, whom he could count on. And Angelus had never filled either role.

What's wrong, childe? What's so wrong that you have to come back here, and not have it out with Angelus straight off?

Silence answered.

After a minute, Spike straightened from his silent communion with the footpath. No doubt he felt better - no doubt he would go back home, now. Or whatever he called home these days. What is it about the Hellmouth that gets all these kiddies all riled up? Liz wondered, rubbing at the tired muscles in her neck. Plenty of power elsewhere -- why do they all flock to the sun?

Dimly, Liz wondered where Drusilla was. She hadn't heard that those two had gotten back together, but she'd assumed... looked like Spike was here on his own, though. Just as well. Liz doubted that she'd have heard that honest plea for savagery if Dru had been around.

And you want savagery, don't ya childe? He'd been tempered recently, she could see. The spark that had made him such a beautiful creation had been dulled with continued exposure to his sire's self-righteous pontifications. Whether as Angel or Angelus, that was one creature that knew exactly how to make his childe feel about three inches tall.

Spike shook his head slowly, as if trying to disprove her inner monologue. "Bye Liz," he whispered to the gravestone, then stood. "I'll kill him eventually, you know. But not for Drusilla. For me." There was steel in his tone, if nothing else.

Liz smiled wanly. Something was coming, that tone promised, something bad. There would be a showdown eventually... whatever else happened. I know childe, I know. Her smile grew wider. I'll be waiting to see that.

Almost as an afterthought, Spike thrust his left hand, full of offerings, forward. "I brought ya somethin'. As a gift, like. I, uh, I figured you'd like 'em. I mean, that's what I remember from ya..." He left the gift -- whatever it was -- on the grassy earth in front of the broken stone, then swiftly turned on his heel and marched out, head held high.

Liz watched him go thoughtfully, curbing the instinct to follow. He was practically running out of the cemetery in that impatient way of his – far be it for him to walk when he could run, and to stand still when he could pace restlessly – and she doubted that either was up for a confrontation in this place. Time enough for that later, when he sorted himself out. What's Angelus been doin' to ya, childe? No matter. She'd wait for an answer... she had doubted that Spike would be able to go for long without confiding in her, and here she was being proven right. Maybe she'd have to come back here more often, to wait. Might be interesting, for a while.

But for now...

She crept forward, smiling as she saw the familiar headstone. The footpath leading to the Chapel had disintegrated years and years back, and each stone had been painstakingly replaced with the oldest of the gravestones – just like the redbrick walls. The graveyard was slowly being rebuilt using the forgotten bits of graves. Idly, Liz wondered if the gates themselves would soon be replaced with bone and wild flowers.

The stone itself was relatively clean, washed by the recent rain. The name was gone completely, as were the years marking a forgotten life. Better that way, she supposed. Everything fades with time, and people were no exception. Of the rest of the inscription, only a few words remained intact, and most of those were covered in watery mud. One, though, had been carefully cleaned, the earth eased away to see the torturous engraving that proclaimed, "Beloved".

Beloved. Indeed. She smiled at this, and the smile got wider and wider as she looked down and saw what Spike's 'gift' to her was -- what he remembered of her. Laughter bubbled forth as she reached out a hand gently to touch one of the bright yellow petals.

Figures, William. Figures.

End "Buttercup"


End file.
